Welcome to Evan’s mailbag, where Evan Rawal answers all your Avalanche- and hockey-related questions each Monday. Mailbag questions can be sent to [email protected].

It’s a small sample size, but both Ivan Ivan and Sam Malinski have been solid contributors. Malinski, in fact, looks phenomenal. Are the Avs, in your opinion, able to take a bow and celebrate two rare wins from their developmental system?

You certainly can count it as a win, although neither were actually drafted by the Avalanche. So most of the work was done by Ivan’s CHL team and Malinski’s NCAA team. Still, the Avalanche got things over the finish line, so to speak, so they deserve credit.

Malinski and de Haan’s numbers on the third pair are quite impressive, so that seems pretty set in stone.

I know I said I see Ivan being sent to the AHL at some point when the team gets healthy, but it’s not because of his play. It simply becomes a numbers game at that point. Everything about his game is impressive. He’s going to have a long career in the NHL, in my opinion.

In your estimation, why the slow start by the Avalanche to start the season?

Maybe it’s not fair to do this, but games 1 and 2, I’m chalking up to bad goaltending. There’s no way around it. The Avalanche should have walked away with at least one win in those games and, if they had done so, the situation wouldn’t have seemed so dire.

The games against the Islanders and Bruins were different. Colorado played poorly against New York and took the loss that it deserved. Against the Bruins, the Avs didn’t play a full 60-minute game. They weren’t bad, but it will be hard for the current group to beat good teams without a 60-minute effort. The margin for error is too small for them right now, and that’s really what it comes down to. If or when they start to get some bodies back, that should change, but it’ll be a while before we get to that point.

The top players are doing their part offensively, but the team isn’t getting much out of the rest of the roster. None of this should really be a surprise, though. The first month of the season was never going to be easy, and we’re seeing that right now.

Predictions on how the three-goalie situation plays out?

Well, I kind of made my prediction the other day when I said that I see the organization waiving Justus Annunen. After his performance against the Sharks, that prediction might not look so great, but hear me out.

While the Avalanche say they have confidence in Annunen, how they use him says otherwise. Last season, he started 12 games and this year he’s at just one. Of those 13 starts, only two have come against playoff teams. One of those was against Tampa Bay, and one of them was against an Edmonton team that was resting all of its good players in the final game of the regular season. I guess you can count that one, but it really wasn’t the same team.

The point is that the team has really shielded him from playing against good teams, so I’m not sure I’m ready to buy that they have full confidence in him. If Annunen outplays Kahkonen, then it’s easy to put Kahkonen back on waivers, but I think it certainly comes down to one of those two hitting the waiver wire.

Do you keep Ross Colton at wing?

Ross Colton is crushing it on the wing right now. It helps playing with a few superstars, but playing with superstars is never easy. Until you get some bodies back, you have to keep him on the wing.

But when guys like Drouin, Lehkonen, and, eventually, Nichushkin return, doesn’t the team have no choice but to put him back at center? They just don’t have enough centers hanging around to keep him on the wing.

The organization is pretty happy with Parker Kelly at center, but he’s not a third-line player and never has been. When you get some bodies back, I put Colton back at center and maybe put him with O’Connor and Kovalenko (sorry, I’d push Wood to the fourth line) and suddenly, the team looks pretty deep.

Of course, this is all dependent on the team actually having a full, healthy lineup. There’s no guarantee we will ever see that.